No student should go into LS expecting to transfer, but if your in the Top 10% at Florida Coastal and can transfer into FSU or Florida and pay 1/3 of the Tuition to attend a better school why not Transfer.

schools overplay the transfer part of attrition. Most (if not vastly most) just straight up fail or quit.

And if you students of any value feel the need to flee, that says something as well.

Not necessarily Transfers are a huge part of attrition. Florida Coastal reported losing 207 students and 114 were due to Transfers. Well over half of the attrition was due to transfers.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that I don't think anyone will argue Florida Coastal is some elite school, but it gives students a chance. For those that excel and can get into Florida or FSU second year and get in-state tuition at a more respected school why not transfer.

I don't think FCSL claims to be anything other than what it is an ABA school that will teach you the law.

Not necessarily Transfers are a huge part of attrition. Florida Coastal reported losing 207 students and 114 were due to Transfers. Well over half of the attrition was due to transfers.

I don't think there is anything wrong with that I don't think anyone will argue Florida Coastal is some elite school, but it gives students a chance. For those that excel and can get into Florida or FSU second year and get in-state tuition at a more respected school why not transfer.

I don't think FCSL claims to be anything other than what it is an ABA school that will teach you the law.

I suppose I'm thinking more the Whittier and CBE schools more than anything else. Still though, higher attrition than other schools says that SOMETHING is less than preferable from the one that is drastically higher than the industrial wide average. (be it people running away or anything else)

"Since you seem so adamant against this may I ask what a school gains by dismissing a student? Why would a school want that to happen?"

Because they *already have this planned out in their business model.* Just try and think about this for a second. Schools plan based on yields of students- for all their classes. This means that they (in this case, Florida Coastal) expect, *expect* that-1. A certain small percentage of their students will do well enough to get the heck out.2. That a large number of the partial (or even full!) scholarships that they gave out will not be renewed based upon unrealistic class ranks. So students will have a difficult decision. They expect, based upon the past, that the majority of these students will take on student loans to continue, and a minority will drop out.3. That a certain percentage will simply fail out. Moreover, they expect (based on past years) that these students are less likely to be the scholarship students.

Now, why do they need all these students to leave? Because they don't have enough teachers for the upper level classes (or didn't, until admission cratered the last two years). In other words, this is all part of the business model. Moreover, they understood this, because they are required to maintain a certain bar passage rate- admitting terrible students allows them to get a full year tuition from them in cattle-call 1L classes from them, without worrying terribly about their bar passage rates.

This is so basic I have trouble understanding your lack of understanding.

Finally, anyone who goes to a school like this assuming they will transfer is taking a huge, huge risk. Because if something bad happens, you don't get to go to UF, or FSU, and pay 1/3 the tuition. You end up paying Harvard prices for a Florida Coastal degree, that doesn't give you a great shot at passing the Florida bar, and barely ranks among the top 10 degrees... in the state of Florida.

Agreed, going to a law school expecting to transfer is a terrible idea.

However, FCSL admits fringe students, but if all their students do great and are fully capable of passing the bar, which is unlikely to happen they would have millions of extra dollars in tuition. With these millions they could hire a few extra professors. They would much rather have the revenue stream and deal with the headache of hiring a few professors, but realistically that doesn't happen.

In summary does Florida Coastal plan on the students failing out, transferring, simply leaving etc? Of course, but they don't want it to happen.

All businesses plan for revenue losses as they should, but no business wants to lose revenue.

"In summary does Florida Coastal plan on the students failing out, transferring, simply leaving etc? Of course, but they don't want it to happen."

OMG. Seriously. If they are planning on it, and they set the curve so that it will happen, and they (unlike other schools) don't have a process to let these students back in, and they don't have the facilities to let these students continue...

Then yes, they do want it to happen. It is their business model. They deliberately let in unqualified students, knowing that they will get tuition money for a year, and don't have to worry about their bar passage rates.

"All businesses plan for revenue losses as they should, but no business wants to lose revenue."

Do you not understand? They would lose revenue if they had to hire more teachers, get larger facilities, and worry about ABA accreditation problems ... in fact, because of the change in the legal landscape, they are currently worrying about ABA accreditation.

I honestly don't understand why you defend the worst of the worst. I know people that have gone to Fla. Coastal and have become fine attorneys, but I can't condone the business model of schools like this. They prey on information asymmetry. The people I know who went to Fla. Coastal and succeeded would have succeeded at other schools, and I've heard a lot of horror stories. (And we happen to be picking on Coastal- this applies to a few other schools as well.)

Actually yeah that makes a lot of sense. There is a vacuum created and a market will create itself to take that money. Heck, look at places like Cooley they set up campuses in towns where they KNOW there are established lawschools (UofM,MSU, etc) and scoop up the extras that can't make it anywhere else.

Caveat Emptor for sure, but its kind of hard to really mean that when dealing with obviously mentally inferior buyers. Marketing targets kids and high school dropouts on TV for a reason. They are easier to sell too. They are literally too stupid to know how stupid they are.

Heck many in CA, and cooley and a few others don't even require an undergrad degree and only require the most nominal of ceremonial sittings of the lsat. They know what they are doing and don't care. They just want that money. Its why they let people stick around on AP for so long to stretch out the funds and then graduate people with a 2.0 GPA and blame them if they fail the bar exam. They give full rides to people with ok GPA and LSAT knowing they can then point to them and go "oh they did ok in life, so you have no excuse" which is equate to someone buying both a donkey and a race horse and then saying "they are the same now, there is no reason why ones chances should differ from the other"

For the non-aba schools that might be true. However, Cooley, FCSL, etc require a college degree and an LSAT score.

However, people are adults and make their decisions. Many of the people really want to go to law school and for some it will work out and others it won't.

None of these schools are forcing anyone to attend law school. These incoming students are college graduates that took the LSAT and applied. If Cooley is the only school they got into they had better realize that it will be an uphill battle. Many do, but I have met people that were admitted to Cooley that think they will be millionaires within a year or two of graduation and Cooley can't be blamed for that kind of unrealistic expectations. I have also met really smart Cooley grads and at the end of the day people are responsible for their choices.

The non-aba schools that don't require a degree or LSAT do take advantage, but the ABA schools have some standards.

" If Cooley is the only school they got into they had better realize that it will be an uphill battle."

As has been shown in various court cases, certain schools have preyed upon these unrealistic expectations. Most schools have published unrealistic, misleading, and false employment statistics. Other schools make it very hard to get an accurate assessment of the difficulty of, say, maintaining a scholarship or even staying in school, as most students are not aware of the differences between undergrad and a forced class rank with a curve.

As a supporter of free markets, I don't have an issue with the Cooleys and the Coastals of the world- if people want to take on that debt for a lottery ticket, or believe they can do it, that is their decision. What I do take issue with is when people (like you) minimize the risks, or don't acknowledge that these schools have an actual business plan than involved screwing over some of their students- sorry, admitting students that will likely not succeed, and not giving them any recourse when they fail out, and planning for that. Oh, and issuing scholarships with the knowledge that a significant portion of the student body will be unable to keep them. You know, little things like that.

My shorter version is- if your answer is the Cooleys and the Coastals of the world, you should make sure that you have asked the right question.

As far as I know nobody has won any of the lawsuits against the schools. You can sue anyone for any reason, but these are college educated students making a decision.

If you want to be a lawyer people are going to present facts in a way that is misleading and don't get me started on a rant about rankings, polls, statistics you can make them say whatever you want.

The scholarship thing is something many people take issue, but I played college basketball and the same things they recruit kids and if they don't hack it they lose their scholarships and are f'ed and those are high schools, which is a way more messed up system. However, knowing this and wanting to be a lawyer guess what I did when my school offered me a scholarship? I asked what the conditions were they said 3.0 I then asked how many people have a 3.0 at the end 1L and they responded 35% and I knew then there was a 65% chance I would lose it.

These are people that want to be lawyers, but don't ask basic questions. No school anywhere guarantees a job and if you are a college graduate with a decent enough LSAT score to get into an ABA school you are not an idiot. If you don't have the balls or experience to ask questions when you are getting money that is your own fault.

I do take issue with schools that don't require a B.A. or LSAT score those people are more susceptible, but anyone at an ABA school graduated from college. If they think a law school scams for not asking questions try a credit card company, bank, car salesman, broker etc.